The Mighty and Their Fall by Ivy Compton-Burnett Read Free Book Online Page A

own.”
    â€œNo, you would try to use it. You must live your life with Ninian, and forget everything besides. It is the best chance for you and him.”
    â€œBut not a very good one. He will not forget everything but me. There will be too many reminders. I should like to have a life that was what it seemed. But I see no hope of it.”
    â€œIt is a pity you did not know Ninian’s family, as you came to know him.”
    â€œYes. He simply said he was a widower with a mother and five children.”
    â€œSimply!” said Hugo. “And you thought you could have a life that was what it seemed! Not that what it seems is not enough. Cannot you be content with it?”
    â€œContent to live on the surface, with all this simmering underneath?”
    â€œWhy not be thankful that that is where it is?”
    â€œI should think your life is very much what it seems.”
    â€œI am afraid it is. I am so ashamed that I show it. I should not dare to share it with anyone, in case she assumed that things were hidden in it, and asked me what they were.”
    â€œIt would be good to hear there was none.”
    â€œBut a shared life might bring them. And I should not know how to deal with them. I have only looked on.”
    â€œWhat are you doing now?” said Ninian. “Do you feel it is your duty to converse with the guest, in accordance with some social code? It is not a formal occasion.”
    â€œWe are talking deeply. And deep things never come to an end. And almost everything seems to be deep.”
    â€œYou must not tire Teresa. She is not used to a large family.”
    â€œThat is what I felt. I thought I should be a rest for her.”
    â€œIt hardly sounds as if you were.”
    â€œHe gave me calming advice,” said Teresa. “I am to live on the surface and forget what is beneath. Your past with your wife and daughter would be thrust down and forgotten.”
    â€œMy daughter! Is that never to be laid to rest? Things could not have gone on much longer. Her life must develop apart from mine.”
    â€œShe may feel it is happening in the opposite way.”
    â€œSo it is. But it will happen with her in the end. It is her time to be free. It is strange that people do not see it. And it is stranger that you should belong to them. It is something I did not look for.”
    â€œIt is for yourself that you are making the change, my son,” said Selina, in a low tone. “If it were not, you would not be wise to make it. As it is, you are.”
    â€œHow few people would realise that!” said Hugo. “It is pleasant to hear it stated.”
    â€œThen in what way am I a culprit? That is how you all see me.”
    â€œIn your way of doing it, Father,” said Egbert, also speaking low. “You could have chosen a better one.”
    â€œThen I should not have done it,” said Ninian, drily. “I see I took the only one.”
    â€œI wish I was not the cause of all this,” said Teresa.
    â€œIt had to come,” said Ninian. “We see it was the time. I will not have it come again.”
    â€œYou can feel you are a martyr, Mrs. Chilton,” said Hugo. “So you should be experiencing ecstasy.”
    â€œA martyr also has honour. I have neither the one thing nor the other. But I almost feel it is what I am. And it seems that the same might be said of someone else.”
    â€œThen do not say it,” said Ninian. “That is a reason why you should not. Do you think it is the way to serve her? You are surely too wise.”
    â€œIt may serve her in the end.”
    â€œWhy do you say so?”
    â€œIt was what came into my mind. Well, she has her brother. Perhaps the others need more pity.”
    â€œNo, they give it,” said Hugo. “And it does no harm, when it has enough contempt in it. And their pity has.”
    â€œOh, I have not a brood of little martyrs,” said Ninian to Teresa. “I don’t